


F*** Quarantine

by writerbot



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Quarantine, Fluff, M/M, Slow Burn, TikTok, quarantine fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-22 18:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30042807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerbot/pseuds/writerbot
Summary: Luke couldn’t make out much of what the kid looked like at first with the sun glare, just that he was stocky and small and pressed his little hands against the window. Then he pressed his whole tiny face against the window, his big eyes focused on Luke. His hair was long, curly, and brown and his pudgy little baby hands hit the window occasionally. The arm wrapped around him just seemed like it was there to steady him, and after a moment he saw that back of someone’s sweatshirt, like whichever parent had come to save the baby was sitting backwards on the sill while they let him amuse himself with the forbidden outside world.The baby gave him a toothy grin and waved. When Luke waved back, he clapped his hands and started talking, or probably babbling, to the adult that was holding him. He bounced up and down as he babbled.And Luke justmelted.So, he did what any respectable adult would in that situation: he went cross-eyed, puffed out his cheeks, and waved his hands on either side of his face until the baby laughed.--A very fluffy quarantine AU
Relationships: Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker
Comments: 54
Kudos: 260





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: some slightly questionable mask practices.

[“Is this allowed?” The TikToker laughed. Leaning out the side of their window, the video showed a young blonde man on the same side of the street as the video-taker. He was sitting on his fire escape without a mask, making stupid faces in between laughs. He had a cup of bubble tea and a book resting on the fire escape in front of him.

The video moved to the other side of the street, where a baby was pressed against the window, banging his little hands on the window and laughing hysterically. 

The video flipped to the TikToker, whose face was red from laughing. “They’ve been doing this for over an hour. I can’t breathe. Four months of quarantine has really driven us crazy, huh?”]

-x-

Luke was out of breath by the time he made it up the stairs to his fifth floor apartment, but giddy at the same. Being cooped up inside for weeks on end during quarantine had admittedly driven him a little crazy; leaving his building to run errands had felt like a special treat. That and the fact that it was – approximately – a million degrees out, so he had gotten himself a large bubble tea on the way home.

Still, the weather was nice enough that he was reluctant to head back inside, but wary of running into any of his students in the park. They didn’t seem to understand why they couldn’t give him a hug, and he hated turning them away. 

The last time he had gone three different children had run up to hug him before he or their parents could stop them, and Luke was pretty sure that qualified him as a health risk.

Besides, he wanted to drink his bubble tea before the ice melted, and he didn’t feel safe taking his mask off, even briefly and socially distanced from others, in the park. It just felt wrong. It also felt like someone was going to scold him for having his mask off, and he was pretty sure it would be justified.

Luckily there was always the storied New York City tradition of sitting on your fire escape when the weather is nice, and Luke figured since he was on the 5th floor, COVID probably couldn’t get him even if he took his mask off to drink his tea. He dropped his bag, grabbed the book he had been reading from his desk, and climbed out the window, into the warmth.

Artoo meowed at him as he went, and he even took a break from ruining Luke’s furniture once he realized Luke was going out there.

His cat loved the fire escape even more than Luke did, and he used to scratch anyone near him if they wouldn’t open the window so he could go sit out there. Now, Artoo was content to just open the cabinet doors and knock down everything inside. So that was an improvement, sort of.

He settled cross-legged on the fire escape, putting his book and tea in front of him but leaving his phone back on the window sill. Han had dropped his at a house party once, and it had fallen through the grates and smashed, unsalvageable, onto the sidewalk below. They had only been on the third story then, Luke didn’t want to know what would happen if he dropped it from the 5th.

Artoo came to curl up on his lap, content to just bask in the sun. For as much of a little bastard of a cat he was, he seemed to understand that the fire escape had firm boundaries of where he was allowed to go, namely always in Luke’s sight, never near the edge, and not far enough to the left that he was closer to Luke’s neighbor’s window than Luke’s. She was nice, the one time Luke had interacted with her. Artoo had gotten to her side, and she had let him in and brought him back around through their hallway. 

He leaned back against the wall, stretching his arms up in contentment at the warm sun. It wasn’t as bad up there, probably just because he was in the shade.

He and Leia used to do this all the time, back when they stayed at the Organa’s bougie SoHo apartment during college. Sitting out there alone just reminded him of her, and how far away she lived, and how he couldn’t hop on a train to DC to visit her anytime soon because the Senate was still running in person and the idea of getting on public transit during a pandemic made him nervous. They had been inseparable as kids; it had been hard enough when she had moved to DC in the first place.

The virus just made it 100 times worse.

Fuck the pandemic.

And fuck quarantine too, as much as he knew it was necessary.

He pouted to himself, petting Artoo for a couple minutes before he felt settled enough to actually take his mask off and drink his boba.

A quick survey told him most of his neighbors had their windows shut and the air conditioners blazing. He did his best not to peer into anyone’s apartments as he looked. The street below was only one lane so the apartments across from him were close, and it was just manners in the city to pretend no one else existed, and neither did their apartments.

And if you failed to do that, well, it was your fault if you saw your neighbors changing.

He was about halfway done with his bubble tea when movement in one of the windows caught his eye. At first, he just looked up to see if someone was opening their window – he’d put on his mask if they were – but instead he saw a little head bouncing off the window sill.

There’s always that moment when something bad is probably about to happen that you feel like you can’t look away. Not because anyone can prevent it, or because you want to see, but still your eyes stay glued to the potential tragedy like a bug to a windshield. And that’s how Luke felt, watching as a baby in the apartment directly across the street from him trying to climb up onto the window sill.

There was a glare over the window, making it hard to figure out exactly what was going on unless something was close enough to the window itself, but Luke watched with increasing horror as a little head covered in brown, curly hair bonked up against the window again and again, only to fall back a couple times.

Should he shout? Would this kid’s parents even hear him if he did?

The little head bonked against the window again, followed by a little pudgy leg encased in green. After a couple quiet, tense moments, Luke watched the baby, probably about a year old with the way he was climbing, wiggle the rest of his body up onto the window sill. He did little push ups, as if trying to figure out how to stand up, and Luke’s heart stopped thinking he might fall backwards off the sill. It was apparently wide enough for him to sit on, but that didn’t mean it was safe for him to be up there.

And when he made it, pressing his little hands and face against the window to peer out, Luke remembered that he probably  _ could _ yell and be heard if he wanted to. He was outside, and noise from the street tended to travel pretty well. Hopefully both of his parents weren’t on Zoom calls or something where they wouldn’t hear him. “Hey, your baby is climbing up on the window sill,” he shouted.

Several people on the street looked up at him, but there was a flurry of vague movements beyond the glare on the windows and then he could see half an arm wrap around the baby, whose whole body was pressed up against the window at this point.

The people watching him from the street left after Luke gave them a thumbs up to indicate the baby had been saved, and Luke wondered if they had thought he was talking about a baby crawling out of an open window. He would have screamed a lot more and a lot sooner if that had been the case.

He thought he could make out a quiet ‘thanks’, muffled by the window, but it was hard to tell. Mostly he was just relieved that someone was there to stop the baby from falling. The window was shut and had a gate, but Luke had no idea what was under the window inside the apartment. Surprisingly, once the arm had wrapped around the baby, his parent didn’t try to remove him from the window sill, but instead held him there so he could look out.

_ Cute _ .

Luke couldn’t make out much of what the kid looked like at first with the sun glare, just that he was stocky and small and pressed his little hands against the window. Then he pressed his whole tiny face against the window, his big eyes focused on Luke. His hair was long, curly, and brown and his pudgy little baby hands hit the window occasionally. The arm wrapped around him just seemed like it was there to steady him, and after a moment he saw that back of someone’s sweatshirt, like whichever parent had come to save the baby was sitting backwards on the sill while they let him amuse himself with the forbidden outside world.

The baby gave him a toothy grin and waved. When Luke waved back, he clapped his hands and started talking, or probably babbling, to the adult that was holding him. He bounced up and down as he babbled.

And Luke just  _ melted _ .

So, he did what any respectable adult would in that situation: he went cross-eyed, puffed out his cheeks, and waved his hands on either side of his face until the baby laughed. Once that face had earned enough laughs, he made another, pulling out his ears and blowing a raspberry. The baby hit his little hands against the window as he laughed and Luke couldn’t help but laugh with him.

Once, while he was struggling to write an essay for his grad school applications, Leia had told him his passion in life was clearly just making stupid faces at small children, which was true and actually part of the reason why he wanted to be a teacher. He made a joke about it at one of his interviews. That school hadn’t accepted him so maybe it wasn’t as funny as he thought it was, but he had also joked about it during job interviews and gotten hired all the same.

He was pretty proud that at work he was one of the favorite kindergarten teachers. The office regularly tried to put students that had trouble being away from their parents in his class because he was the best at calming them down. And maybe staring down a very amused little boy across the street reminded him of how much he missed work and how much teaching over Zoom sucked and how worried he was for his students and their education, but it was easier to push those thoughts away than dwell on them. After all, he was doing everything he could just by staying inside all the time, as much as it felt like he was doing nothing other than slowly losing his mind.

He spared a quick look at what he thought was the parent’s face, trying to convey “hey is it okay if I keep making stupid faces at your baby”, and when the parent didn’t pull the kid away, Luke went right back to it.

Now that he wasn’t cross-eyed for a silly face he was making, he could see that there was a certain, common game afoot. Anyone who has made silly faces at children on the subway would be aware of the exact rules of the game. First, the baby hid his face in his parent’s shirt. Then, Luke made a stupid face before the baby peeked out and laughed at him. Finally, the baby hid his face again and Luke changed his expression to something new.

It was a specific, weird brand of peek-a-boo, but one that seemed to amuse the kid to no end. When Luke paused the game to drink some more tea, his little hands pounded against the window in dismay and Luke watched a stern finger come to wag in front of the baby’s vision. A minute later, the baby was hitting the window again anyway, so it wasn’t exactly an effective deterrent, which only made Luke laugh harder.

And if he spent like two hours making stupid faces at a baby, that was neither here nor there. 

-x-

Leia looked tired, even over video call. He could hear Han in the background arguing with Chewie over the phone, and Luke could feel her decompress even if they weren’t near each other.

“Are you outside without a mask?” She asked.

“I’m on my fire escape,” he answered. “The weather is nice and no one can come within like 40 feet of me while I’m up here. I also–” he held up the mask resting on his knee, “have one in case anyone else opens a window too close to me.”

“You live on the fifth floor, right?” She asked.

“Yeah, so it’s probably fine. Besides, the cute baby across the street–”

Leia laughed. “You’re still making faces at him? Hasn’t it been like a week?”

Luke laughed with her, his eyes flickering to the window briefly to make sure the baby wasn’t there yet. So far, he hadn’t shown up until after lunch time. And, well, if Luke had decided to eat his lunch out on his fire escape for the past two days, that was entirely unrelated. It was definitely not because he was having fun making dumb faces at a baby to the point that he was planning his day around it.

“It’s only been like three days,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Besides, this is the closest I’ve had to in-person interaction in months, you can’t blame me.”

“You do love making dumb faces at babies,” she agreed.

-x-

Luke hadn’t seen the baby in a day or two, and that was fine. He had had a bunch of staff meetings with work trying to prepare for the new school year and council the new teachers coming aboard whose student teaching experiences had been cut short. They all seemed to be vibrating with nerves when Luke called them, so he had let the meetings go long just to answer all the questions they had and provide as many resources as he could.

Normally, he’d have student teachers in his class three times a week, so it wasn’t odd for him to take on this role, as weird as it was to be handling it online and trying to prepare them to teach virtually, something Luke had only done for about three months before summer vacation. 

He felt a little bad when he caught sight of the baby pressing against the window during one of his meetings, the flash of someone’s shirt in the background being enough for Luke to not worry about him falling, but he did worry the kid was disappointed. So, when the weekend hit and the weather was nice enough for July again, Luke pulled out his sketchpad, a bunch of markers, and a pencil, and set to drawing outside on the fire escape. There were a couple windows open, so he decided to keep his mask on, but it was nice enough to just be outside.

Artoo settled next to him and promptly fell asleep on his leg, and Luke started to draw.

Luke had always liked drawing. He rarely had the patience to make a finished piece or anything particularly complicated, but he’d sketch out things from time to time and if he really liked it, he might bother to do line art or add some colors. It had been a tradition over the years to draw elaborate cartoons on his chalkboard after holiday breaks, and he had missed being able to draw for other people.

Which is why, when the baby had appeared in the window again, bouncing up and down with excitement that Luke was back outside, he hadn’t thought about turning the canvas around to show off the half-finished sketched portrait of Artoo he was in the process of outlining with markers. 

And maybe he had a bit of a heart attack when the baby started bouncing up and down in excitement, but that steady arm came around him to keep him from falling.

The glare wasn’t as bad, a little earlier in the day than their previous interactions, so Luke could make out a little more of the scene behind the window, although he certainly felt creepy looking in too much. From what he could tell, it was a man holding the baby, though his face was still caught up in the glare. He had broad shoulders and thick arms. And maybe Luke imagined an attractive face to put on that body.

In his defense, Luke has been stuck inside since March. That’s four months where it was too unsafe to go clubbing or hit up anyone on Grindr. So if he saw half of someone’s body, supposed they might be hot, and started daydreaming about it, well, you couldn’t really blame him, could you? It had been a while. Quarantine sucked. And if he could hear Han and Lando teasing him in the back of his head, well, that was something he was going to choose to ignore.

The little baby seemed to run off from the window, and Luke thought perhaps he was being too boring for them to interact. He was just drawing after all. His downstairs neighbor had their window open, too, so Luke wasn’t about to risk taking his mask off just to make some silly faces.

But then, as he finished up the line work and flipped the page, he thought he heard banging on the window.

The baby was back, banging on the window until Luke looked at him. He pressed up a drawing of his own against the window, and after a moment his father reached out to steady it so Luke could make out the grey blob with two blue spots scribbled in crayon there. Luke looked at it, then down at Artoo, who was also a bit of a grey blob when he wanted to be, and then pointed at the cat with a tilt of his head. The baby cheered and nodded his little head.

Luke watched as the dad put the baby back down off the window sill, caught up in the flash of brown hair he saw. There was a finger pressed against the window, as if telling him to wait, and a moment later the baby was back. He pressed a stuffed green frog against the window. Luke could vaguely hear him screaming babbled out baby language about the toy.

So, Luke drew it as quickly and largely as he could, directly in marker. Once he finished, he turned the paper around, only to find the baby had been distracted looking at the birds in the trees down the street. 

His dad pointed, and the baby looked at Luke again only to start jumping and cheering at the drawing. He made little grabby hands, trying to get through the window to get the drawing, but his dad scolded him again with that simple finger wag. Luke laughed as the baby turned and it looked like he was trying to have a serious argument with him, despite the fact that Luke had just heard that he was still speaking in baby-speak.

After a minute of arguing, the dad picked up the baby, who fussed up a storm at being lifted. Luke watched them with a small chuckle and then went on to sketching the buildings outside his apartment. He was pretty practiced at animals and cartoon characters, given that was most of what he drew for his students, but he had always wanted to get really good at cityscapes and natural drawings so that he’d have something a bit more respectable to show other adults. Well, other than portraits, which were the first thing he learned to draw and the absolute bane of his existence, if he was being honest. They took forever, and Luke rarely could find it in him to actually finish them.

He had drawn one of Leia and Han at their wedding once, and it took him nearly a year to complete because working on it was so tedious for him.

He had gotten into the zone by the time they had returned to the window, so Luke didn’t notice at first. The little boy was sitting down on the window sill, his legs straight out across with a sketchbook of his own and a bunch of crayons. He had another stuffed animal, which he showed Luke once he realized he had Luke’s attention again.

It was some sort of furry monster, blue with a strange grey faceplate. It’s eyes were either black or hollowed out and it’s mouth was pulled into a little frown. Luke squinted, trying to see it better, when the baby dropped it. After a moment, the dad picked it up and held it up to the window so Luke could see while he and the kid drew the strange little monster doll together. Luke did his best, but unlike the frog, he had no idea what it was, and the dad was holding it up high enough on the window that it was somewhat caught in the glare. Luke couldn’t tell if it had ears or not, or exactly what its face looked like, but he did his best.

When he was done with it, he’d admit it wasn’t a particularly good drawing, but it was recognizable enough as the monster doll, and the baby across the street again tried to climb through the closed window to get it, so Luke supposed he had done a good job. The baby showed him what he had been working on, several colorful blobs, and Luke couldn’t help but clap his hands. “That looks amazing,” he shouted, and he could hear someone in the apartments below him laugh.

“Is it the baby again?” They shouted up at him.

“He’s drawing this time. We’ve got a new mini Monet on our hands,” Luke called back, a little quieter since he was pretty sure it was just the neighbor right below. His eyes flickered back to the window, where he could just make out the shake of the dad’s shoulders.

After a minute, Luke could see him trying to open the window, in theory to shout something back at them, but the baby pretty much immediately tried to shove crayons through the gap.

Luke laughed hysterically as the two of them seemed to have a mini fight, with the baby insisting that he really did need to shove his crayons out of the window while the dad tried to close it again. Eventually, he seemed to get it shut, and stole a page of the notebook from the baby. Luke waited, supposing he was going to write him a message Taylor-Swift-style. And then, of course, Luke had to remind himself that this was not the You Belong With Me music video of his youth and that he might just be writing “please stop humoring my kid or he’ll keep climbing on the window sill.”

He didn’t have to stew in that worry long, watching the baby try to shove crayons out of the closed window, before the father held the sign he had made up to the window. In big block letters, all caps, though a bit cramped at the end as if he had run out of space, it read, “THANK YOU FOR AMUSING HIM. HE’S GOING STIR CRAZY”.

Despite the fact that he was pretty sure they could hear him if he yelled loud enough, Luke flipped to a clean page in his sketchbook and wrote back “no worries! He’s very cute” and on the next page, “and we’re all going stir crazy”. When he held the two pages up to the dad, he could see shoulders shaking in laughter again.

Unfortunately, he still couldn’t make out the guy’s face with the level of glare. Luke almost wanted to write asking him to press his face to the window so he could see, but that would be weird, and Luke was pretty sure this quarantine-induced weirdness was already beyond the acceptable standards for the city, so he wasn’t going to push it. After a moment, he flipped the page and wrote out: “would you like the drawings for him to color?”

He wondered if that was too weird for the few moments that the dad spent ripping out another page and scribbling his response, and then relaxed at the response. “Apt 5A.”

Luke smiled at that and then went back to drawing. He went for some of the more common characters he’d put on the school chalkboards or his students’ workbooks when he checked homework. They were practiced and quick, especially since he was just drawing them in marker. He doubted the baby would notice or critique him if his lines were a little off, too, so it wasn’t necessarily his best effort. Part of him wanted to draw the baby too, but he was worried that would cross some sort of line.

The baby showed him a couple more toys to draw over the few hours they were drawing together, a strange little snake-like dragon, a rhino, a spaceship, a robot, and more. Every time Luke would flip the notepad around to show him, he would get so excited he’d jump up and down. When his father tried to stop him, Luke was pretty sure he started hitting him in the face instead.

It was so painfully cute, enough that when the father wrote out that they had to go eat and put him down for a nap, Luke was almost sad to see them go. He texted Leia a long string of heart emojis followed by, “why is quarantine so WEIRD”, and then headed out to deliver the drawings and buy lunch.

He felt a little weird heading up the stairs to someone else’s apartment, like he was doing something wrong by being in a space that wasn’t his. Frankly, being in any enclosed space other than his apartment had made his skin crawl of late, something about the risk of getting sick feeling so high, even when all he did was go up the stairs, slide some pictures under a door, and then go back down without seeing anyone. 

Still, he left with a smile on his face and a little skip in his step.

-x-

Luke was pretty sure he could hear a baby in his hallway, which was weird because he was also pretty sure no children lived in his building. In fact, he was pretty sure the entire apartment building was painted with lead paint specifically so there  _ couldn’t _ be any children in the building.

As the baby sounds went up the stairs, it became pretty clear that the child was fussing up a storm.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you, kid. We’re going to give it to him, I promise. Just one more flight,” he heard an exasperated voice laugh, and was immediately stricken by how deep and gravelly it was, even through the mask. “Here, ok. Uh…. This one is probably his door. Do you wanna put it on yourself?”

The baby made a bunch of blurbling sounds, some of which sounded like actual letters rather than baby noises. Luke crept over to his peephole, only to find he couldn’t see anything. The man must’ve been crouching down to be eye-level with the baby.

“Yes, I promise that’s the guy who makes funny faces,” the man said very seriously.

Was it the guy from across the street with the cute baby?

And then there was a light, barely there knock on the door, and a deep exasperated sigh. “Grogu, he can’t come out to say hi right now,” he mumbled before speaking louder. “Uh, sorry. My son’s been trying to open the window to give this drawing to you. I figured it was safer to just let him bring it over, rather than waiting to see if he figures it out.”

Luke cleared his throat. Ok, so definitely the baby from across the street and his mysterious, possibly hot father. “No worries! I teach kindergarten, so I’m used to kids being like that.” And sure, maybe he only mentions he’s a teacher as a means of quietly telegraphing ‘I’m not a weird person, I promise’, because the baby, Grogu apparently, has been the highlight of his day for over a week now and it would suck if his father decided it was too dangerous to let a stranger make faces at his kid.

“That… makes a lot of sense,” the father said with a lot of hesitation. Luke could hear him mumbling to his son after, trying to help him tape the drawing to the door. 

There was another series of light, poorly-coordinated knocks and a quiet, sighed, “we talked about this, kid,” before his dad told him to have a nice day, and Luke parroted it without thinking, despite the fact that he was quite literally vibrating behind the door with how weird and thrilling it felt to be interacting with someone in person.

Seriously, fuck quarantine.

Once Luke thought he heard them leave the building, which admittedly was near impossible from the top floor, he put on his mask and opened the door. Outside there were two drawings taped down at the floor level, and a still-shut bubble tea with a wrapped straw resting on top.

Luke bit his lip as he carefully worked the two drawings off the door. One was the drawing he had done of Artoo, which Grogu had scribbled grey and blue crayon all over, as well as, inexplicably, a singular line of magenta. The other was a group of blobbed colors – mostly black with a tan blob on top and yellow lines on top of that. They were almost enough of a shape that Luke thought the dad had probably helped Grogu a bit with it, to make it look like him. There was also a completely random grey scribble next to him, which Luke assumed was Artoo, and which confirmed the rest of the drawing was probably done with some help.

Though not much, given how blobular it was.

Luke brought his gifts inside, hating how hot his face felt even after he closed the door and took off his mask. It was cute enough that they had brought over two of Grogu’s color pages for Luke to look at, one of which was an original and the other being something Luke had brought over like a week prior, but the fact that they had also brought him bubble tea?

Luke’s heart was pounding and that was dumb. It really was stupid. He did not know what this man looked like. Despite his best efforts and daily through-the-window meetings to amuse his son, Luke had barely caught more than a glimpse of this man’s torso, and nothing else. And, while it was an attractive torso (however attractive a clothed torso you can barely make out from across the street can be) that did not change the fact that Luke had not seen this man! Plus, he had a toddling baby, so even if Luke had never seen anyone else in the apartment – not that he’d been looking,  _ thank you _ – he was probably married. He probably had a lovely spouse who also loved Grogu. Maybe there were even two men and Luke just couldn’t tell their torsos apart.

And then he promptly ignored the mental imagery that gave him.

God, every thought he had just had was so weird, but the long and short of it was that he was staring at a cup of bubble tea a stranger had brought for him, his face was beet red, and his heart was pounding in his ears.

He blamed quarantine.

He managed to calm down after a minute or so while Artoo meowed at him. Sometimes he thought Artoo was making fun of him. In fact, he was pretty sure of it. As he settled back down at his desk, he noticed the free hand drawing had some text on the back. It read:

“Hey Neighbor-

Thanks for helping me keep the kid entertained this past week. I’m trying to work from home and keep him amused at the same time, but I swear every time I turn my back he gets into trouble. You don’t have to keep amusing him if you don’t want to, but I appreciate your help.

Thanks,

Grogu’s Dad”

Luke’s face flushed back to beet red.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din loved his son. He really, truly, did. Nothing would ever change that. But did the kid really have to learn how to walk?

[Luke held his hand over his mouth, his red face filling up most of the frame of the video. “So, I brought my neighbor craft supplies for his baby last week, and–” 

The video flipped around, showing the outside of a red door and tile floor. At the bottom of the door up to about 2-3 feet up were a bunch of blobby, uneven finger paintings, some of which had clearly had an entire tube of glitter dumped on them while the paint was still wet. 

“–they came by to decorate my door today, apparently.” The camera panned up, where there was a large gap of nothing in the door, and then another set of haphazardly taped pictures. Immediately prior to the pictures and only in frame for about a second was a small, folded over card with the words ‘Thanks Again’ handwritten on the outside. Luke skipped over it to focus on the paintings. “This is the best new artist of our generation, people.”

“This is so cute; I’m going to–” Luke paused, taking in a deep breath and screamed for half a second before the TikTok ended.]

-x-

Din loved his son. He really, truly, did. Nothing would ever change that. But did the kid really have to learn how to walk?

Walking was maybe not the best word for it, given Grogu could barely stand on his own and frequently fell on his butt when he got distracted. Instead, he had a little chair that he pushed around, one that Peli had sent over with wheels on the bottom after the last time she had babysat him so Din could go grocery shopping.

Sometimes he was worried when he left Grogu with her that he wasn’t going to get him back, especially given the affection was apparently mutual, sort of. Peli loved Grogu, Grogu loved Peli’s three cats, and Peli’s cats were indifferent toward Grogu.

He sighed, mumbling a quick “one second” to the meeting he was in before grabbing Grogu, who was in the process of pushing the little plastic chair up against the radiator so he could climb the both of them to make it onto the window. “Mijo, he’s not out there. It’s raining.” Grogu fussed until Din picked him up and showed him again that their cute, friendly neighbor was not on the fire escape in the pouring rain.

Except that Cute Neighbor’s cat was sleeping amongst the plants in the window, and Grogu was enamored. He fussed and fought with Din’s attempts to get him away from the window, but eventually gave in when Din got him at an angle where he could still see the cat, even in the increasing distance.

Din carried him back to the desk, making sure to hold him high enough to see the cat as he sat back down, “sorry. My son is in love with our neighbors cat,” he told the small group he and Greef had been meeting with. “He keeps trying to climb onto the window sill.”

There were a couple chuckles and sympathetic looks, a comment from one person about their child’s virtual classes, and another showing their dog who had been barking throughout the meeting, and then they were able to continue on with little concern. By the end of the meeting, Grogu was asleep on Din’s shoulder, apparently tired out from all of the excitement of seeing a cat, or perhaps all of the boredom of being relegated to his spot on Din’s lap.

He and Greef were set to have a brief meeting after to discuss any changes they need to make to current proposals and set up the work for next week, but the planning lasted barely three minutes before Greef gave up. 

“The little one is getting bigger by the day,” he said affectionately.

“He’s becoming a nuisance,” Din said, knowing no matter how tired he was, it was just going to sound affectionate. He rubbed Grogu’s back as he spoke, and then pushed the hair out of his eyes. 

Greef chuckled, shaking his head. “And you’re sure I can’t convince you to take the train up here and leave him with me? Cara and I could take care of him for a day.”

“Both of you refuse to change diapers,” Din reminded, “and I don’t want to risk it.”

Grogu fussed against him. Din took a moment to readjust him so he was laying down with his head on Din’s bicep. He bounced Grogu gently a few more times, settling him in his arms and back into his nap. It was hard to look away from him.

“You’ve got a lot on your plate, Mando,” Greef said, calling back to a college nickname that Din had never escaped from. “I know you weren’t supposed to be working this much, but I spoke with Bo-Katan. I think we can rework things so that you don’t have to be in as many meetings in the near future, if you can manage until then. Hopefully after next week, you’ll have more time with him.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Din agreed. He technically was supposed to work part-time until Grogu was a year old anyway, but things had changed with the pandemic and they needed his help. “I don’t think Peli will though.”

Greef laughed. “Well, if she gives you too much trouble, send her to me.”

Din nodded, and once the call ended his eyes fell back on Grogu’s sleeping face. He rocked the boy for a moment before standing up to pace with him in his arms. Din had never been one to pace before, but it seemed to help Grogu sleep and nap time had become an area of contention in his apartment.

He wasn’t going to blame the neighbor across the street, but it wasn’t just his cat Grogu was enamored with, and the fight between continuing that interaction and nap time was ongoing.

Even then, Din was thankful. Cute Neighbor seemed to like sitting on his fire escape and always brought books or art or his laptop out there, but for some reason never dismissed Grogu when he interrupted. Sometimes he would sit out there for hours just making silly faces at Grogu. He was pretty sure the guy must just miss his students, but it did make Din’s life a lot easier when he didn’t have to worry about entertaining his son.

And he was nice to look at.

Din paused in front of one of the windows, looking out at the street as the rain came down. There were a couple people running, others with umbrellas, and far too many who didn’t seem to care in the slightest that they were getting soaked. One of the apartment’s in Cute Neighbor’s building had the window partially open.

When he checked back to see if the cat was still in the window, he noticed the cute neighbor was also looking out, his shoulders slumped as if he had needed to go outside.

Their eyes met.

Din’s immediate reaction was to look away. Making eye contact with someone was rude and strange, and Din was already bothering this guy enough by asking him to entertain Grogu so often. He looked back after a couple seconds, and the guy waved at him with a friendly smile. Din waved back. 

He wondered what his name was, or if that was even an okay thing to ask. Privacy was a weird thing, especially in the city, and it felt like it was breaking some sort of rule just to ask for a name.

Cute Neighbor held up a finger, as if asking Din to wait, and then ran off. He returned with a notepad and marker, pressing them against the window as he wrote. It was hard to make anything out through the thick sheet of rain, even his face was blurred and unclear. If he hadn’t seen him so many times before, Din wouldn’t be able to tell what he looked like.

“I have some extra finger paint,” the sign says. A second reads, “I can bring it over once the rain stops.” 

It’s kind of unbelievable in a way. This guy always seemed to have what Din needed and had no qualms in giving it. He entertained Grogu, he dropped off art supplies, and he seemed genuinely surprised every time Din brought him something as a thank you.

He gave a thumbs up to the window and got one in return before leaving the window-side to go back to work. Grogu’s nap time was pretty much the only free 90 minutes he had all day.

-x-

Din couldn’t help but chuckle as flour got all over the floor, as Grogu’s erratic mixing sent a puff of it everywhere. He did try to explain that they were just measuring the flour, not mixing it, but Grogu had decided he needed to mix and would whine and shove Din when he tried to help. “You better not be setting into the Terrible Twos already. You’re over a year early,” he joked.

“That’s good. I think we mixed it enough. Now, let’s pour it in the bowl,” he explained softly as he took Grogu’s hands and helped him pour the flour in. With the other dry ingredients already added and mixing, he picked up Grogu so he could watch the paddle go around.

Grogu pointed to the window.

The fire escape was empty. “He’s not out there right now. It’s still early,” Din answered.

Grogu pointed again, more insistently and babbled.

“He’s not there.”

Grogu pointed again, this time whining at him.

With a sigh, Din took him over to peer out the window and see for himself that the cute neighbor was not outside, nor was his cat in the window. “See? I’ll bring you over once he’s there. Let’s at least finish making cookies first.” 

Grogu started babbling at him, as if this was an argument he could win.

“I hear you. Yes, I understand. You want to say hi and make silly faces with him, but he’s busy right now. And we’re making cookies.” Grogu just argued back louder, eventually hitting Din’s face when he wouldn’t agree.

Din gave up and just carried him back to where the batter had formed proper dough, turning the machine off. 

“Alright, I’m going to put you down for a second so I can roll this out. Do not try to climb the window sill,” he said. As he put Grogu down, he wasn’t surprised to find Grogu clinging to his leg at first. “No window sill,” he repeated.

So of course, within two minutes, Grogu had pushed his little chair against the radiator and was trying to climb onto the window sill.

“Mijo,” Din said sternly, and Grogu’s attention shifted to him with a pout. He stepped away from the chair and sat on the floor, in the middle of the pile of baby toys that littered the entire apartment. Between Greef, Peli, Axe, and Amore, Din had barely needed to buy toys. They just showed up in front of his apartment every few weeks. 

And now the cute neighbor was dedicated to making sure there was glitter and paint everywhere too.

He managed to finish rolling out the dough before he noticed that Grogu had disappeared. “Kid?” He called out, ducking his head into Grogu’s room first, then his own when he couldn’t find him. Only to find, of course, the Grogu had pushed his little chair against the radiator in there to climb onto the window sill and smush his face against the window. He was babbling insistently and hitting his hands against the window. Din rushed over, grabbing him before he could fall.

“I told you no window,” Din scolded.

“Patoo,” Grogu argued back. He tried reaching for the window as Din pulled him away, but eventually gave in and snuggled back into his father’s shoulder when he saw the cookie cutters. Once they were close enough, he tried to climb out of Din’s arms to get to them.

“Which one do you want? Remember they don’t go in your mouth. No eating the dough until it’s baked, either,” Din said, already knowing it was a lost cause on both accounts.

The little frog shape Grogu picked up lasted all of three seconds before it was being teethed on. The dough took maybe three minutes of Din helping Grogu push a star into it before he managed to get a piece. Din kept his hand over Grogu’s, helping him lift and push down the plastic cookie cutters until the dough was used up.

He bounced Grogu on his hip as he moved the cookies over to the tray, using the scraps to make a second sheet of tiny ones that he could use to bribe Grogu into sitting still during his meetings.

And with nothing else to do while the cookies baked, Din settled on the floor with Grogu to play whatever game interested him the most.

Once the cookies were done and cool, still soft enough that Grogu didn’t need to chew them, Cute Neighbor had found his way out onto the fire escape again. His cat was laying in his lap and he was typing something on his computer. Grogu crawled to the window the moment he spotted him from the top of the couch (when and how did he get up there? Din only looked away for a second.) Din intercepted him, placing him on the window sill. 

“Don’t bother him. He looks busy. You can look, but no banging,” Din said. Grogu banged on the window. “No,” Din said again, with a firm finger wag. Grogu looked up at him, staring for a long moment, and then banged on the window a second time.

Cute Neighbor was already waving, and Din and Grogu waved back at the same time. He went back to his laptop after though, and Grogu seemed content with just the acknowledgement, so Din had some hope they wouldn’t prey on this guy’s good graces too much for once.

Grogu started to climb down from the window, not even fighting when Din put him down on the ground. He crawled off, through the piles of baby things lying around the apartment, until he found the finger paints. He looked at Din, then pointed at the window again and babbled. He waved the finger paints as he babbled, his other hand patting his own leg.

“You wanna paint with him? Sure, we can paint.” Din gathered up the newspaper he had been using to try to save the floors and a couple of the thick poster-board-esque papers he had bought for Grogu to paint on.

Once the newspaper was spread out, Din put Grogu and his supplies back on the window sill.

The neighbor looked up at the movement, and smiled when Grogu waved at him again.

His smile was especially cute, Din would give him that. Disarmingly genuine and charming, and Din couldn’t get over it. He couldn’t get over how cute he was with Grogu either. If the two of them ever interacted in person, he was pretty sure his heart would stop. 

After a couple silly faces, Cute Neighbor went back to whatever he was doing on his computer and Grogu was easily redirected to the paints in Din’s hands, babbling excitedly as he painted.

“Uh-huh,” Din agreed to the babbled story Grogu was telling. He wasn’t the most talkative kid, but something about being up on the windowsill had him babbling like he was using actual speech – the right cadence and rhythm, intonation like an adult’s, but just no real words. “That’s very interesting,” Din agreed to whatever he was saying. “And what do you think is going to happen next?”

Grogu babbled back happily, waving his paint colored fingers and splattering some on the window as he did. Din used a bit of newspaper to wipe it off as he kept encouraging the conversation, asking questions here and there and laughing when Grogu did as they went through paper after paper of very carefully blobbed on paintings.

“Can I see?” He heard, muffled through the window. Cute neighbor had put his laptop to the side and was leaning forward over the railing of the fire escape.

“Do you wanna show him your art?” Din asked Grogu, who babbled excitedly in response. Din picked up one of the finished paintings, the only one he thought he could hold upright without paint dripping everywhere, and held it up to the window. Grogu babbled excitedly about it, as if he was explaining it to Luke. His little voice was about as loud as DIn had ever heard it, and he was almost certain Cute Neighbor could hear him from the way he was laughing.

“Amazing. Truly astounding. You’re the best artist I’ve ever seen,” Cute Neighbor teased, and the way Grogu smiled, Din almost thought he understood the compliment.

He couldn’t help laughing, ruffling Grogu’s hair with an (unfortunately) paint-covered hand. They’d have to have bath time later anyway, given Grogu had a habit of touching his face and hair with his paint covered fingers anyway.

From there, Grogu would try to show Cute Neighbor his art every time he finished, babbling happily and bouncing a little as he received compliments for it. One of the other apartments opened their window to shout something nice to Grogu too, and Din’s heart softened. The few times he had brought Grogu on the train before COVID hit had been a lot like this. College kids, men in fancy suits, and old women alike would try to catch the baby’s eye and humor him. He remembered the one time they had taken the train to Brooklyn to visit Paz, an old man had played peek-a-boo with him the entire trip.

Grogu settled into the routine of painting and showing it off, and Cute Neighbor looked up at the right moments to praise him. It was a good way to spend an afternoon.

-x-

Grogu was much calmer as they set up the stairs to Cute Neighbor’s apartment again. It was a weekly tradition at this point, ever since the first time he had dropped off bubble tea as a thank you, to make some offering to the kind neighbor who his kid loved so much.

He hadn’t brought any of Grogu’s art since the first time – it was too much of a hassle when he also needed to hold Grogu and the tea, but this week he had opted to bring some of the cookies instead, and the paintings sat neatly over the flat box. He briefly wondered what his neighbor’s face would look like when he opened them, if he’d laugh at how Grogu decorated them with icing. Din had tried to pick the ones without any fingerprints, but he knew there was one in there Grogu had managed to get his thumb in as he was closing the box. 

It also helped that he had finally managed to wash the baby carrier, so he didn’t have to dedicate an arm and a half to keeping Grogu steady. He was a little fussy at first as Din strapped him to his chest, but once settled in, he had just amused himself trying to grab the things Din was carrying in his hands.

Once they were on the 5th floor, Din set everything down and let Grogu out of the carrier. “Ok, just like the last time. We’re gonna tape up some of your pictures for him.”

Grogu babbled back, knocking on the door, but there were no shuffling sounds inside so Cute Neighbor must have been out. “I don’t think he’s home right now, Mijo, and we can’t play with him for a few more months. Let’s tape up your art instead.” He offered one of the finger paintings to Grogu, who pressed it against the door with a wide-eyed look back at him, and babbled with excitement when Din taped it down.

Grogu got the next painting by himself and pressed it into the door, babbling the entire time.

Din sneezed.

The cat hair from inside the apartment must have made its way out, because the longer they stayed there putting up paintings, the worse his allergies got. Eventually he gave up, strapping Grogu back to his chest and helping him put the rest of the paintings up at that height, where he felt a little less muddled.

His thumbs ran over the small envelope containing the note he had written. He had left one every time, just simple thank you cards for whatever supply Cute Neighbor had dropped off that week (and last week, also an explanation of why he had to bring the Play-Doh back – Grogu kept trying to eat it), but this one was different. This one contained an actual request. Din really didn’t want to ask too much of this man’s kindness, but he could use the help.

As August rolled in, it was raining more and more often. Grogu was incredibly fussy those days, and wouldn’t stop climbing on the window sill every time Din was distracted. He was lucky he had been set back to part time work again and had less meetings, because Grogu was getting increasingly frustrated with being trapped inside.

Getting Peli to leave her phone out on the floor so Grogu could watch her cats play had helped, but she was busy with the auto-shop reopening and couldn’t film them often. That also meant she couldn’t watch Grogu anymore, given she was meeting people in person again.

It was a lot.

He wouldn’t ask Cute Neighbor to watch his son – that seemed like a lot for someone he didn’t even know the name of, but he was wondering if he could forward Din some cat videos to amuse Grogu with. Just forward some videos, not even a call. That shouldn’t be too much, right? 

Still, Din’s hand hesitated on the note, as Grogu blurbled up at him with a steady side eye. “Yeah, yeah, okay, you’re right,” Din agreed.

He stuck the note on the door, then balanced the cookies on the thick stair railing with a couple pieces of tape to hold it down. One look back at the set-up told him it was as good as it was going to get, so after making sure his mask was on right, he headed back down the stairs. “Let’s go walk around the park,” he said as he went, adding – “No running into the lake” – even though he knew it was a lost cause.

-x-

Cute Neighbor didn’t text until the next day, right before he’d normally go out to sit on the fire escape. Din was in the process of trying to get Grogu to eat something for lunch, although Grogu seemed much more invested in drinking his juice then any of the baby food options Din offered.

**(Unknown Number):** Hey! This is Luke Skywalker from across the street. Here’s some cat videos :D

Din paused as the videos started coming in, staring at the influx of messages. After a moment, in which Grogu threw his bottle with a laugh, Din texted the name “Luke Skywalker” to Cara and saved the number.

**Luke (Neighbor):** That’s all of the ones I have saved right now    
**Luke (Neighbor):** I can also just video call   
**Luke (Neighbor):** If you’re comfortable with that!   
**Luke (Neighbor):** I call to let my sister see Artoo like every day anyway

Cara responded nearly as fast.

**Cara:** the senator’s brother????   
**Cara:** she’s like the only pretty politician   
**Cara:** oh so when you said he was cute you meant Cute

She attached a photo of Luke and a woman Din thought he might vaguely recognize from work, although usually Greef and Bo-Katan handled any direct dealings with government officials. The caption underneath was from a new article, noting, “Senator Leia Skywalker-Solo and her brother, Luke Skywalker” along with the details on some fancy party they had been attending.

Din shot back a quick ‘thank you, I’ll show him later’ to Luke and a ‘shut up’ to Cara, then went back to feeding Grogu.

The weather was nice though, and with the baby carrier clean, Din didn’t feel bad about going to sit on the fire escape himself. After all, he knew Grogu wouldn’t be able to escape once strapped to his chest, and too many people tried to get close to Grogu when they had gone to the park the day before.

He strapped his son in and put a mask on before opening the window and undoing the child lock that held the bar-gate in place. He carefully climbed out and settled with Grogu in his lap, the straps of the baby carrier holding him there.

Grogu babbled excitedly, tapping his little hands against his legs as he looked out at the outside world. A couple birds flew by. Grogu all but screamed in excitement about it.

Din watched as a couple neighbors peeked their heads out to smile at Grogu, but they disappeared soon enough. The sun was nice on his skin, warm in a way he hadn’t experienced much that year, and the wind is the perfect break in the new August heat.

**Cara:** nothing to report   
**Cara:** he’s a kindergarten teacher   
**Cara:** his family is Old Money   
**Cara:** but no arrests or anything   
**Cara:** other than that his sister is still hot

Din feels himself relax. He hadn’t been expecting there to be anything on Luke, but it was good to hear. He pulled up the cat videos Luke had sent over, holding up his phone for Grogu to see and pressing play on the first one.

Grogu went quiet, his big eyes fixed on the screen as he watched Artoo playing with a string being dangled. Din could hear Luke’s stifled laughter in the background, and tried not to be hit too hard by how warm and soft it was. “You can get it Artoo, come on,” Luke encouraged in that same soft tone he used when shouting praises at Grogu for his art.

When the video ended, Grogu whined until Din played it again, then he went back to quiet, a calm tilt of his head as he was mesmerized by Artoo going after the string again.

They must have watched it 7 times before Grogu stopped babbling arguments at him when he tried to pull up a new one. The next one was of Artoo sleeping in the window, surrounded by plants. There was some snapchat filter over it, causing the video to be slightly grainy and sepia toned as little cartoon stars flickered in and out around the edge of the frame.

It wasn’t until they were on their fifth watching of the third video that Grogu seemed to get distracted, gnawing on his hand as he pointed across the street.

Luke was in the window, not looking out but stretching in front of it. Din looked back down at Grogu, who was already waving excitedly with the hand not currently in his mouth. Din’s eyes flickered back up to note they had gotten Luke’s attention. 

Din’s phone buzzed.

**Luke (Neighbor):** I was actually just about to sit outside too   
**Luke (Neighbor):** if that’s okay   
**Luke (Neighbor):** will he try to get off the fire escape?

Din texted back “he’s strapped in, no worries” and then smoothed Grogu’s hair down. For all his normal fussing, he was actually pretty calm in that moment, just chewing on his hand and watching Luke move around in his apartment. There were a couple other people on their fire escapes down the block, so Grogu waved at them too whenever he got bored with Luke.

The window opened and Luke climbed out, mumbling something to himself as he went. Artoo followed him out, causing Grogu to yell again in interest, babbling loudly enough to travel across the block.

“Yeah, look, Luke brought his cat out. He said the cat’s name is Artoo. Are you going to wave at Artoo?” Din murmured to his son, helping him wave at the cat. Grogu responded by hitting din with his other, spit-covered hand and babbling some more, and Din couldn’t help but chuckle as he wiped the spit off. “You’re a menace, you know that?” He cooed.

Grogu turned his attention back to Luke pointing insistently at him. “Yes, he’s right there.” Din agreed.

“He’s cute,” Luke called from across the street.

“He’s a little monster,” Din replied with an affectionate pull on Grogu’s ear.

Luke smiled, and Din felt his face flush. He was lucky Luke was wearing a mask or that smile might have knocked him dead. “They always are,” Luke agreed. Grogu waved at Luke again, seemingly excited about the attention. Luke waved back, that warm smile not fading. “Hi Grogu. And, uh, hey neighbor.”

“Hey,” Din echoed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys thank you so much for all the love on the last chapter im so Soft ;.; 
> 
> i have a [tumblr](https://itspixibot.tumblr.com) btw

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone stay safe and wear a mask!
> 
> Thank you to the dinluke server as always for helping me think thoughts!!


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